The trickster in the paradigm of the photographic discourse of English-language prose of the second half of the 19th – early 21st century

Abstract

The aim of the study is to demonstrate the way the trickster features in the images of photographers created by English-speaking writers of the second half of the 19th century and the early 21st century were changing. The author of the article implements a historical and literary review that allows capturing the prerequisites for the formation of trickster traits in the first images of photographer characters as well as the laws of their further development. The originality of the research lies in the fact that the article examines the images of trickster photographers for the first time in Russian literary criticism and for the first time presents the influence of the cultural-aesthetic paradigm on the formation of their representative features. Thus, the trickster features were traced in the image of a Victorian era photographer in the story by W. Rhodes “Phases in the Life of John Pollexfen” (1876). The character, striving for fame and well-being, resorts to a terrible and inhuman experiment coordinated with the victim through a scientific invention – color photography. The novel “The Sorrows of an American” (2008) by a modern American writer Siri Hustvedt presents the image of a digital-age voyeur photographer, in whose hands collage photographs become a means of manipulation, provocation and banter. His intention is aimed at creating the world of simulacra as one of the basic settings of the postmodern paradigm. The research findings made it possible to identify the specifics of trickster traits in photographer characters belonging to different eras. The ambivalence of the characters’ nature, combining in itself the destructiveness and creativity at the same time, was identified as the key idiosyncrasy.

References

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: January 11, 2025.
• Published: February 24, 2025.

Keywords

• персонаж-трикстер
• фотограф-трикстер
• фотограф-вуайерист
• фотографический дискурс
• рассказ “Phases in the Life of John Pollexfenˮ Уильяма Роудса
• роман «Печали американца» Сири Хустведт
• trickster character
• trickster photographer
• voyeur photographer
• photographic discourse
• short story “Phases in the Life of John Pollexfenˮ by William Rhodes
• novel “The Sorrows of an Americanˮ by Siri Hustvedt

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